Parkland's Dara Torres advances to Olympic Trials final

Swimmer on the brink of qualifying for Games at age 45

OMAHA, Neb. — Dara Torres has to hope that age and guile beat youth and innocence on Monday when she makes one final swim for a trip to the Olympic Games.

Despite impressive showings in both of her races on Sunday, Torres' chances of making it to London are hanging by a bubble

At 45, the decorated Olympian from Parkland battled swimmers half her age or more to make it through the preliminaries Sunday morning in the 50-meter freestyle, where her 25-second finish placed her fifth out of the 16 who advanced to the semifinals.

There, she improved her ranking, with a 24.80 finish that put her third after Jessica Hardy and Christine Magnusson.

But only the top two make it to the London Games.

Already tied for the most Olympic medals ever won by an American female swimmer with 12, Torres would have the chance to for surpass her co-record holder, Jenny Thompson. But that's not the prize she has her eye on.

"In '08, it was about winning medals. I felt like I was going to be there," she said of the Beijing Games, where she won three silvers, including one that would have been gold had she come in one-hundredth of a second faster. "This time around, it's about making the team."